Musikers

The present work dates from Nussbaum's period in Belgium to where he fled in February 1935 on a tourist visa. Settling first in Ostend - hometown of James Ensor, for whom Nussbaum felt admiration - and then later in Brussels, Nussbaum's art from this period reflects his increasing anxiety of exile. Musikers (Musicians) is an oil version of a gouache entitled The Classical Singing Lesson today housed in the Israel Museum, Jersusalem. It was frequently Nussbaum's practice in the mid-1930s to execute oil paintings on panel such as the present work, often using extant drawings as inspiration. Describing the Jersusalem picture, Emily D. Bilski has written: 'One of the first works fromn the Belgian period, The Classical Singing Lesson is a reworking of motifs from the 1933 drawing Destruction. The drawing represents Nussbaum's fear at the moment catastrophe struck, whereas the 1935 gouache offers an update on the situation as he and Felka [his companion] tried to rebuild thier lives in Belgium' (see exh. cat. Art and Exile: Felix Nussbaum, 1904-1944, New York, 1985, p. 38).